Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries) (30 page)
Read Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries) Online
Authors: E. E. Kennedy
“Vern? He’s out to dinner with his dad, but they’ll be back soon, I think. I overheard them plotting with Alec to throw me a surprise bachelor party out here.”
“Oh, no! They won’t hurt you or anything, will they?” I had heard horror stories about such parties.
Gil laughed. “Don’t worry. They’re just going to have pizza and beer and a few ribald party favors. These things are pretty tame for a guy my age. Wait! I have someone here who wants to say something to you.”
I heard a deep, steady purr.
“Sam!” I cooed. “How are you? Is Daddy being good to you? Are you getting used to your new house?”
“Hey—save some of those sweet nothings for me,” Gil interrupted. “He’s okay. Don’t worry.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it, but I miss him, Gil. I wish I’d kept him here.”
“You can’t have him at the B&B, Amelia. There are all those health department regulations. And if you gave him to Lily, he’d probably eat himself into a semi-coma again, and you’d mistake it for poisoning.”
“Wait a minute,” I said sharply, “I beg to differ. Sally did poison his food through the cat door, remember? Sam was just too full of Lily’s leftovers to eat it. In essence, she saved his life.”
“Well, all I know is you wasted a lot of guilt over it. This is the best answer. And once you’re here . . . ”
“But I miss you too. Can’t you come over and give me a good-night kiss?”
I heard the smile in his voice. “Much as I’d love to travel all those miles into town for sixty seconds of passion, I’d better pass. Besides, it’s bad luck to see the bride and all that.”
“I’m not superstitious,” I declared petulantly.
“Well, maybe I am, so good night, Love of My Life, and I’ll see you tomorrow at two in the afternoon.”
“It’s a date,” I whispered, and hung up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When Valerie arrived the next morning, with her Sunday dress on a hanger and Sunday shoes in a box, she couldn’t tell me anything about Marie. “She just called last night and said she had something to do. Didn’t come back to the house all night. Told me to hold down the fort and I’d see her whenever.”
Valerie shrugged and patted my hand. “Don’t you worry a bit. I’ve got it all under control.” She began to tie on an apron. “You’ll have to excuse me, though. I gotta finish makin’ them canopies.”
I tried not to speculate about whether this meant a happy reunion or a depressing need for Marie to be alone. I ran upstairs to finish my packing.
In the afternoon Lily drove me to the church. She looked beautiful in her mint green suit. “I did it,” she said gleefully as we got in her car. “I managed to avoid the Old Man of the Sea all last night. I didn’t answer the phone at all, just turned off the ringer and went to sleep. Maybe he’ll get the message.”
I looked at myself in the car mirror. “Don’t tell me these things. It makes me sad, and I’m determined to be happy today, no matter what. Is this lipstick too dark, do you think?”
“Give it a rest, Amelia. You look gorgeous. That winter white suit is perfect. I have excellent taste, if I do say so myself.” Lily had found my dress in a bridal catalog. “Here.” She thrust a tiny zipper-lock plastic bag at me.
“What’s this? What’s in here?”
“An old penny, a new penny, a borrowed penny—you have to give that one back to me later—and a blue ribbon. Hide it under your bouquet. Or in your cleavage.”
“Oh, Lily, I don’t need—”
“Just humor me, okay?”
I was in a pale pink fog once we reached the bride’s room, an extra-large ladies’ room with a few elderly plastic flower arrangements and color-coordinated boxes of tissue. There were people milling around me, but I hardly noticed them.
I stood in front of the mirror and stared at the woman there. She looked pretty good. Hair fixed, nice makeup, manicured nails, even earrings. Was she really getting married? I smiled at her. Of course she was! It seemed like the most logical, inevitable thing in the world.
All at once, I realized everyone had gone. I heard music start somewhere. There was a knock at the door. I opened it.
Alec stood there, well-scrubbed and almost handsome in a new gray suit. “Oh, you look bonnie!” he said approvingly.
“So do you. What hymn are you whistling today, Alec?”
He scratched his head, and a tuft of hair escaped its careful, slicked-down position. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been tryin’ to get “Blest Be the Tie that Binds” out of m’haid all day,” he said. “Funny, isn’t it?”
“Not funny at all, Alec. It’s perfect.”
“Are ye ready then, Miss Amelia?” He held out his arm.
I kissed his cheek and took his elbow. “I’m ready.”
Meaghan O’Brien and Lily had preceded us into the chapel and now it was our turn, mine and Alec’s. Slowly, proudly, stepping to the music, we walked down the short aisle.
The chapel wasn’t filled, but the first five or six rows were occupied. Everyone was standing, turned toward us, smiling. Through gaps in my pink cloud I recognized a few faces.
Hardy Patschke crossed his eyes at me and I winked back. Judith Dee, dressed head to toe in blue lace, wiggled her gloved hand in our direction. Hester and Bert Swanson beamed. Valerie, now arrayed in her Sunday finery, was mopping her eyes with a tiny hanky while her husband and son looked on, embarrassed. Jack and
Maman
Yvonne Garneau nodded at me solemnly and pointed across the aisle.
I glanced to my left and stopped in my tracks. Etienne and Marie LeBow stood hand-in-hand. Marie held up her left hand and pointed to a wedding band. Father Frontenac was next to them, grinning and rolling his eyes. I gave them my biggest smile, and Alec and I finished our walk.
All at once, there I was, standing beside Gil Dickensen, promising to cleave only unto him, as long as we both shall live. I wasn’t nervous at all. As I said, it seemed like the most natural, inevitable thing in the world.
“So you see, you won’t need to throw your bouquet at me,” Marie explained later that afternoon upstairs in my bedroom while I freshened up to leave on our honeymoon trip.
The reception had been a howling success. There had been just enough wedding cake. According to Marie’s report, every canapé had been greedily consumed and the only beverage left was ginger ale, fortunately still cold from the back porch, because we had also run out of ice. Nevertheless, the festivities were still going strong. We could hear Dorothy O’Brien at the piano downstairs, playing Christmas carols while everybody sang.
“O come all ye faithful . . . ”
Marie went on, “Father Anthony told us we’re still married in the eyes of the Church irregardless, so we don’t even have to get remarried. Of course, Val’s not happy about it, but we’ll change her mind, I know we will.” I could see Marguerite’s quavering intensity sparkling in her eyes. “Oh, Amelia, he’s such a wonderful man! And I’m so glad he got to know his little girl,” she finished in a husky whisper.
“I am, too, Marie,” I said briskly, hurrying her out the door. “I’ll see you downstairs, dear.” If I listened to her any more, I would be a sodden mess before we started on our honeymoon.
I finished rearranging my hair and looked in the mirror. Not bad. Gladys had persuaded me to let it grow a little and designed a style that helped hide my mangled ear.
Gil didn’t think it was mangled. “It just looks like somebody clipped it on top with a hole-puncher. My granddad used to do it all the time to his new calves.”
“Are you ready to go?” asked my new husband, emerging from the newly installed bathroom, wiping his hands on a towel. He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me down on the bed. “Or shall we start the honeymoon right here?” He kissed my neck.
“Gil,” I said sternly as his hands began to work a kind of magic, “not on Hester’s quilt.” The Swansons had given us the prize-winning quilt as a wedding present.
“Mmm? Am I being a randy teenager again?” he whispered.
“Yes. But I like it.” I put my arms around him.
“Hey, what’s that noise?”
I sat up. “Wait a minute.” I fished the plastic bag out of the front of my dress.
“One, two, three pennies, and a blue ribbon?” Gil said, examining it. “What’s this?”
“Just something Lily gave me for luck,” I said, tossing it away. “I’ll explain later.”
After several minutes, we emerged at the top of the staircase and looked down on a cheerful, anticipatory crowd, made up largely of unattached females. I scanned the group and finally spotted Lily, in animated conversation with Marie LeBow near the parlor, studiously ignoring Alec.
I knew what I had to do. With the eager group of single women leaping for my flowers like a pack of hungry hounds at a hambone, I tossed the bouquet up and over their heads, landing it neatly in Lily’s upraised, gesturing hands. “Yesss!” I said, and pumped my fist in the time-honored tradition of athletes. “Two points!”
There was a hearty, good-natured cheer, and Dorothy struck up “I’m Getting Married in the Morning” on the piano.
Gil laughed and took my hand. “Come on, honey, let’s go.”
We descended in a blizzard of rice. Just as we reached the bottom step, a hand grabbed my elbow in a painful grip, yanked me to one side, and snarled in my ear, “I’ll get you for this, Amelia!”
“I know you will, Lily,
irregardless
.” I laughed and winked at Alec, who, his arm around Lily’s waist, was drawing her ever closer to the mistletoe and the inevitable.
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